Republican's Bold Plan to Tackle Deficit Bucks Do-Nothing Trend

Summary

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WASHINGTON -- Paul Ryan, a six-term Republican congressman from Wisconsin who is the ranking minority member of the House Budget Committee, has yanked himself from obscurity by doing something no one else in Congress or apparently the White House has done: design a specific plan to control long-term government spending and budget deficits. That he stands virtually alone is a damning commentary on our politics.

Many public policy problems are genuinely hard. How to guarantee job creation? Provide financial stability? Improve inner-city schools? There are no panaceas. By contrast, solutions to the long- term budget imbalance are obvious: cut spending or raise taxes. Given the predictable retirement of baby boomers, it was no secret that promised government benefits would overwhelm the existing tax base. This problem could have been fixed.

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Republican's Bold Plan to Tackle Deficit Bucks Do-Nothing Trend

It hasn't because our political culture is so wedded to public opinion that it can't (or won't) govern. To govern is to choose, and our leaders recoil from unpopular choices. Americans want generous benefits and low ta...

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